Iris Wittig (9 April 1928 – 30 September 1978) was a German military pilot. She was the first, and only, female fighter pilot in the

East German Air Force The Air Forces of the National People's Army ( [], ) was the air force of East Germany. As with the , the , and the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic, Border Troops, it was a military branch of the National People's Army (NVA). A ...

Biography

Wittig was born in

Lengefeld Lengefeld is a town and a former municipality in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Ore Mountains, 23 km southeast of Chemnitz. On 1 January 2014 it was merged with the municipality Poc ...

on 9 April 1928. From 1935 to 1945 her father was imprisoned by the Nazi regime, and from 1944 her mother was incarcerated at

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...

. Wittig joined the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...

(KPD) at the age of fifteen, in December 1945, and was active in

Free German Youth The Free German Youth (; FDJ) is a youth movement in Germany. Formerly, it was the official youth wing of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The organization was meant for young adults, both male a ...

(FDJ), a youth political movement, from its foundation the following year. After Wittig completed high school, she worked as a tractor driver in

, and continued with her activism. In 1950 she became deputy leader of the

Volkskammer The Volkskammer (, "People's Chamber") was the supreme power organ of East Germany. It was the only branch of government in the state, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs were subservient to it. The Volkskammer was initia ...

parliament. Wittig wanted to do something more challenging than tractor driving, or office work. She contacted General Inspector Heinz Kessler, whose mother had been in Ravensbrück with Wittig's mother. Through this personal connection, she was able to obtain a posting with the

Volkspolizei The (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the or VoPo, was the national uniformed police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a highly- centralized agency re ...

(the national police force). She progressed to the rank of officer in 1953. She began flying, and completed her training with a Soviet instructor on board a

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of the first successful jet fighters to incorporate s ...

aircraft. In 1954 she was involved in a flying accident and as a result of her injuries she had to cease flying jets. Instead, she flew gliders and

Yakovlev Yak-18 The Yakovlev Yak-18 (; NATO reporting name Max) is a tandem two-seat military primary trainer aircraft manufactured in the Soviet Union. Originally powered by one 119 kW (160 hp) Shvetsov M-11FR-1 radial piston engine, it entered ser ...

s and in 1956 she became a flight instructor.

Family

Wittig married a pilot, Hans Köhler, with whom she had two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wittig, Iris 1928 births 1978 deaths People from Erzgebirgskreis People from Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt Communist Party of Germany members Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians Members of the 1st Volkskammer Free German Youth members German women aviators Air Forces of the National People's Army aviators German flight instructors 20th-century German women East German women